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Archive | December 2015

Meet our latest tech toy! The class has decided to name him Stewart and he is our new smart board. We are very excited to have him and incorporate him into our learning fun. Each student will take turns using it for our morning warm up and we drew numbers to see who would lead our morning on which days. Every morning we go through our routine with the date, daily schedule, weather and some fast problem to start our brains in the morning. We want to send a big thank you to all of you who are in the PTA and have helped to bring Stewart to our class we will take very good care of him!

My last post showed safe and approved tools and apps for the students but unfortunately not all websites or apps are safe. Being a parent myself I can understand and sympathize with the fear of cyber threats. We take every possible precaution in the classroom however once they leave it can be a whole new ballgame. Unfortunately cyberspace can be a very dangerous place, but together I feel we can keep the students safe from online threats.

Here are some links to articles about internet safety for you to better understand what we are up against.

I also want to share with you websites that can help you to better protect yourself and your student. These will help you to explain and demonstrate safe practices with your student when it comes to cyberspace.

We are fortunate enough to be able to have access to technology that further enhances our learning capabilities. The students get the opportunity to use these devices such as iPads in the classroom when we are doing research or using some of the study tools and apps. All iPads are monitored and the student can only use safe and approved apps or websites. One useful tool we have been using in preparation for our next test is a flashcard system where the students can quiz themselves.

Here is the link to the flashcard tool so that the students can continue their work at home. https://quizlet.com/

If the student is looking for more tools and apps to use at devices here are some approved and safe ones that will help them with our current curriculum. These websites also have in depth reviews of the apps they talk about so you can see how other people used the apps and if they felt the tools helped them.

Our craft corner is newly decorated and better than ever. Going off of our hands on approaches to learning we have turned our craft corner into this spectacular piece of art. Each student traced their hand and decorated it the way they felt expressed their personalities. I left the creative ball on their court and let them decorate their drawing any way or color they wanted. All of the hands are reaching towards a quote that embodies a key principle in our classroom. Each drawing is unique just like each student and I was thrilled to see them take such pride in their work and their individuality.

We are happy to report that our class will be starting Freak the Mighty by rodman philbrick. Our class is very excited to begin our new book on Monday although I think it will be hard for this novel to top the reactions that the students had towards E.B White’s Charlotte’s Web.